


Soulmate Marks: Free For All

by Crack_Pair_King



Series: Soulmate Marks: a Joker and a Panther [7]
Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, ShuAnn Week, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-24 12:02:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19723279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crack_Pair_King/pseuds/Crack_Pair_King
Summary: Personas, as Ann and Ren learn over the year after their Awakenings, have many effects.





	Soulmate Marks: Free For All

**Author's Note:**

> This one's a collection of snippets and half-thoughts tied together by the shared idea of the soulmate identifying marks AU that birthed my ShuAnn week series. I hope y'all've enjoyed the ride with me.

Ann walked in to school April 16th with a throbbing headache. Yesterday had sucked. Beginning with dodging Kamoshita, continuing straight through Shiho's... Shiho, then that damned castle and almost being cut to pieces by... shades?

"Shadows." Carmen answered Ann's question. The blond winced as the sensation made her head throb even worse. Not surprising given how last night went.

A to go cup of coffee appeared on the desk at the edge of Ann's sight. Next to it appeared several packets of sugar and a couple containers of creamer.

Looking back at Ren she blinked in confusion. He was staring out the window already. As though realizing she was staring, he turned back, and tapped his temple.

"It's for your headache, Lady Ann. According to this guy and that blond monkey, the night after your first Awakening can be rough."

"Tell me about it." Ann said as she began doctoring the coffee with sugar, ignoring the creamer. "Could have warned me."

"Forgot." Ren muttered. "Sorry."

"Don't be." She took a long sip, and sighed as she felt the headache reduce fractionally. "Why's this even work?"

"Metaverse logic." Ren said before Morgana could begin to explain. Ann considered that, before deciding it worked for her.

"Is that going to be an every night affair?"

"No, the point-by-point breakdown of why you suck is a one night only special." Ren quipped. Ann started to reply, but the entry of the teacher precluded that. She was NOT an academic pillow princess, damn it!

  
"You shouldn't be up and about." were the first words Takemi said to Ren when she saw him and Ann in her office, several days after his supposed suicide. "You shouln't be letting him be up and about."

Ann shot Ren a look, then back to Takemi. "That's kinda what we need to ask you about. Can we..."

"Head to the examination room." Takemi's instructions were clipped enough that the couple didn't bother to argue. She entered in a swish of legs and coat and irate temper. "Why are you even up? Scratch that, how are you even up? Even soulmate driven healing isn't close to that fast."

Ann and Ren exchanged looks. Then Ren pulled off his shirt to reveal his soulmark. Untouched. Unblemished. Not even a scar on the skin that had been, Ren confirmed, sandpapered til it bled.

Takemi stared at the skin around his mark for a good five seconds. Then her eyes went to other injuries, such as where he'd taken a thrust kick to the chest. She looked at Ren, and her eyes held shock.

"That shouldn't be possible. Did you-"

"No." Ann's voice was sharp. Fierce. "Despite him asking. We thought it too risky."

Ren hesitated for a second. Takemi caught it, and leveled a demanding glance at Ren. "Talk, my little guinea pig. Or do I need to get out the compounds?"

"Our... subject matter expert thinks it's a side effect of our abilities. Our group's abilities, not the soulmate stuff."

Takemi quirked an eyebrow, but didn't say anything further. Ren continued in the silence.

"He didn't explain, at first, that our abilities physically change us over time. Thought we knew, since people know about soulmate healing."

Takemi sat down in her chair. Her expression was grave as she looked from one to the other.

"All we know about soulmate healing is that it works, and it appears to feed natural healing mechanisms a stupefying amount of energy. We don't know where from, or any number of other things. Physically changes you, you say?" Takemi scribbled a few things, and then levied a serious look at the two of them. "So what can you tell me?"

Ren and Ann looked at each other. Takemi watched as the blond ran her hand through her guinea pig's hair even as his hand settled on the girl's lower back. Grounding touches, she noted almost absently.

"Our ability is called Persona." Ren began in a tone that told Takemi there was a lot of ground to cover, and not near enough time to do it in. Takemi listened, and very quickly wished she had a drink. Or five.

  
"Take five everybody!" The director of the shoot finally called. Ann couldn't have been more thankful. It was an amazing opportunity, but good god today was just not going well for her. She was tired and achy and it felt like she was in the middle of her period. Except her period was as regular as clockwork, luckily, and wouldn't come for another two weeks. Hecate, who's nature gave her a preternatural awareness of Ann's body and it's rhythms, agreed with that timing.

Wondering if she was sick, Ann made her way to the bathroom. Stepping inside, she stumbled to a sink and the mirror above it. What was wrong with her today?

Leaning forward, Ann tried to massage the headache away, rubbing at her temples and sinuses like Ren had shown her. She glanced up, and almost startled at the sight.

Her eyes were a yellow and black she'd only seen on other faces, never her own. It was like her Persona was awakening all over again.

"Hecate?" Ann asked softly.

"You've been ignoring something." The voice was scarily calm, and that got Ann's attention. Hecate was Ann as much as Ann was Hecate. Neither of them were good at calm. A calm Hecate was a scary Hecate as far as Ann was concerned.

"What? What have I been ignoring?"

A scorching burst of flame against her soulmark. The iconography of her Joker practically glowed from the intensity of Hecate's blast.

"There is more to needs than air and food and shelter, child. You are ignoring a pivotal one."

It took Ann a moment. Then she realized it.

"You've gotta be kidding. You're pissed because I'm not banging Joker every five minutes like I want to?" Ann whispered her snarl at Hecate.

"No you foolish twit. I'm enfuriated becasue you're denying the need entirely. I tire of substitutes and self-satisfaction. I know you do as well. So act on it."

Ann stared at the yellow eyes in the mirror, and knew this was going to be a long conversation. Because currently she was in Italy, and Ren was in Tokyo.

  
A quiet afternoon in LeBlanc. Ren enjoyed these days more the fewer of them he found in his schedule. Days of relative peace and calm. Where he wasn't responsible for decisions and consequences. Where he wasn't studying to become even more responsible for such decisions and consequences.

Ann was currently in Italy, and Satanael was not happy about it. The morning had begun with Ren and his Persona having a lovely discussion about the fine line between pushing Ann into something and asking her opinion on that same thing. Ren wasn't sure what decision he'd make yet. Whether he'd bite his tongue or approach Ann on the issue of-

The door opened with a chiming bell. Ren looked over to the door, a bit surprised. They were currently between waves of regulars. Sojiro had stepped out for a couple minutes explicitly because they were between waves.

The woman was a touch shorter than Ann. Her hair was the same length, but a dark red rather than platinum blonde. And while her sense of style was every inch Ann's equal, her taste ran more to the elegant and formidable than Ann's billowy and comfortable.

Yet something about the way she carried herself reminded Ren of Haru. The poise and elegance of someone raised from a young age to maintain a certain decorum and comportment. The way her eyes scanned the room reminded Ren of his fellow Phantom Thieves. This woman, he concluded, was dangerous.

"Welcome. What can I get you miss?"

She turned her eyes to Ren. They weren't cold, per se, but there was certainly nothing friendly to them either. Guarded was the best he could come up with. Like a fencer preparing for combat.

"I'd appreciate a coffee. This will be a long conversation, and my head is throbbing."

"Someone joining you?" Ren asked as he prepared the coffee. She didn't answer him. At least, not until he poured and served the coffee.

"Whether someone's joining us depends on you, Joker." Ren's eyes snapped up to the woman. Her smile was self satisfaction. "My name it Mitsuru Kirijo. We have a great deal to talk about. Starting with Personas."

**Author's Note:**

> With this, I declare my ShuAnn week project DONE! Perhaps not my best, but it is what it is.
> 
> For those who've been following my Stealing Kisses series, I'm working on the next one and hope to have it out soon. After that, I'll have to decide - post-canon semi-serious/semi-PTs-trolling-official-type-people-in-an-AMA chatfic, or an AU novelization where Akechi's plan is a little more... vicious.
> 
> Thoughs, opinions, votes? Lemme know!


End file.
